Excavating type machines, including backhoe loader machines, are equipped with a bucket mechanism for digging trenches and other excavations. Such trenches are used for installing underground utilities, pipelines, and other buried apparatus. These excavations are often in close proximity to buildings, sidewalks, or other buried utilities. To prevent damage to such adjacent structures and/or other buried objects, it is important that such excavations be as straight, in a vertical plane, as possible. Most excavating type machines are equipped with some type of stabilizing arms to remove the machine weight from the machine wheels and stabilize the machine during the digging operation. These stabilizing arms are also used to level the machine with respect to the surface which supports the machine. However, such leveling operation is only an approximation and is dependant entirely on the judgment of the machine operator. If the operator's judgment is not good, the excavation may be angled considerably, which may result in damage to adjacent structures or to previously buried cables or pipelines, or make machine harder to control as digging arm goes "over center" and accelerates.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.